


Ghosts in the Machine

by LeTempest



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, Anal Sex, Biting, Frottage, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Tattooed!Q - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:09:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeTempest/pseuds/LeTempest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s ambidextrous. He likes animals, particularly birds. He abhors the Beatles and Catcher in the Rye.  His favorite book is Ender’s Game. He likes films of all kinds, except those made after books, because he’d much rather spend his sparse free time with the source material. His favorite color is dark blue and he loves the smell of honey even though he hates the taste. Q is a thousand strange, inconsequential facts that make up an incredibly intriguing whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> Random head canon meets persistent plot bunny. I hope to work some of these into a comprehensive fic one day, but for now, have some smut. This hasn't been brit picked beyond what I can do myself. Still, feedback is appreciated! I am still kind of new to this fandom.
> 
> Disclaimer:I don't own anything and I make no money from this fic
> 
> EDIT: Thanks to all the commenters who offered to help! You guys are awesome a so kind! I a special shootout to Quarby for their editing skills! Everything should be grammatically up to par now :D

Q has a way of defying expectations. A fact that becomes increasingly apparent the more time Bond spends around the younger man.

            That day in the museum, Bond had been genuinely shocked to hear the words “007” fall from such a cheeky, youthful mouth. The boy they now called Quartermaster was little more than that, a boy. A pup who still had spots. A child who’d yet to fill out a skinny frame, too thin even to be called slender. He was porcelain pale, and Bond would have put his money on the boy being just as fragile. His youth was apparent, though he spoke with the same sharp wit as his aged predecessors, and he dressed himself with the same amount of finesse it seemed. Large glasses and patterned trousers and jumpers in any number of heinous colors. Moneypenny called him eclectic. James Bond called him odd.

            It hadn’t taken long for the younger man to prove him wrong. Oh Q was odd, no one would debate that, but he was not so breakable as so many of his peers liked to think. Behind the thick frames of his glasses, Q’s eyes were sharper than the edge of a knife, watching, observing, picking up even the most minute details, finding a monster’s face in a sea full of work-wearied Londoners. Under that tousled mop of hair, was the brain of a mad man and a genius. Lines of code unfolded for him; they are locks, puzzles, and Q always has the key. Hands that Bond once thought fragile and weak, turn out to be weapons of a different kind. Q could type faster than anyone James has ever seen. His hands can take down empires, or protect them, depending on what that magnificent brain commanded them to do. Q doesn’t need to pull the trigger to bring a man to his knees.

            As time goes, Bond begins to notice other things too. Q is soft spoken, but the quiet tone and the wide vocabulary don’t distract from his biting wit. It’s easy for Bond to forget how young his handler is when there are continents between them. He sounds so much like the aging, chiding men, who served before him. But there is strength there too. Q’s voice is a voice he can trust to get him out of a scrap. He definitely hadn’t expected that, being willing to throw himself to the wind on the order of a boy who still had spots. The effect, it seems, isn’t distinctly reserved to Bond either. He commands the whole of Q branch without having to raise his voice. His word is law there, and people listen. Some have been stupid enough to try and challenge him, to bully him because they mistake his observant nature for meekness. He strips them to bone with a tongue like wipe, deconstructing every argument before they can think it, shaving them off their pride and arrogance until there is nothing left and then he sends them away, as if he can’t be bothered by them. Bond has never known a man to come back for seconds.

            He finds this confidence in Q begins to bleed into all aspects of their relationship, not just in fieldwork. He likes Moneypenny more than he’d like to admit. She can keep up with him, she isn’t awestruck by him. She won’t scrape, and she won’t apologize for the calls she makes. He likes that about her. But she with a new M in the office, she has her hands more than full. So he finds himself, more often than not, in the Quartermaster’s presence. Q, like Moneypenny, won’t tip toe around him. Brutal honesty is a rarity in the spy game but then again Q is a very new type of spy. Q understands him and his jokes and his pride and his wit. Q is much the same in many ways. He’s not humble by any means, because people know he has the skills to back up his boasting. Just like Bond.

            They spend hours talking, or more often arguing, about the virtues of this or that. Bond fiercely defends his ejector seats and his exploding pens and Q will scoff and roll his eyes. They are silver and gold, the old world and the new. Whereas Bond is all sharp suits and fast cars and posh flats, Q is quite the opposite. He owns a car, though what kind he will not say. He doesn’t drive it to work; he prefers the tube and the walk. He loves his computers and his codes and his encryptions, but he finds peace in a different place; in art and old books that he says he never has the time to read any more. He doesn’t eat like a bird, as Bond expected he would, but frequently and in sometimes astonishing quantity. He has a taste for Thai and Indian food, Bond discovers quickly, and it’s not uncommon for him to smell faintly of curry. He drinks his tea like some people drink coffee and he only drinks Earl Grey. His scrabble mug, marked with a Q because he loves irony, is never empty.

            He smokes, Bond realizes on day, catching a whiff of cigarette as Q shoulders past him one day. The smell is stronger when he’s acting as direct handler for a field agent, but it’s always there. He drinks too, and often, but never a lot at once. He appreciates liquor like he appreciates art, for the flavors and colors and uniqueness. They sit in Q’s office and talk for hours about the virtues of good vodka and scotch, though Q is a brandy man. He’s ambidextrous. He likes animals, particularly birds. He abhors the Beatles and Catcher in the Rye.  His favorite book is Ender’s Game. He likes films of all kinds, except those made after books, because he’d much rather spend his sparse free time with the source material. His favorite color is dark blue and he loves the smell of honey even though he hates the taste (it’s too sweet, he says). He is a thousand strange, inconsequential facts that make up an incredibly intriguing whole.

            Because for all the things he gives away, there are a hundred more that Bond knows he’s hiding, slipping under the others agent’s nose before he can following his trail of questioning to it’s end. It’s conversational sleight of hand, and Q is as much a master of it as Bond is.

            It’s a constant temptation, to go and dig up the quartermaster’s personnel files.

            But James doesn’t look, doesn’t press, for all that it frustrates him. He doesn’t like to be beaten, especially not by a younger man, but for the first time in a long time he feels like he can breathe again. It’s easy, the game they play, even when it grows bolder, becomes openly flirtatious. Because they both know, because they are both playing on the same field. Attraction and want have so often felt like burdens in the past. It’s the nature of the job and it gets him what he wants, sex is a weapon Bond yields with the utmost skill. But it leaves him drained and restless and bored when the mission ends, as if sex and pleasure have become too tedious to deal with when he doesn’t gain something from them. This is different because there is no ulterior motive. For a moment he remembers what it was like to be the young stag he once was, not the man too old for the game he was still a pawn in. There are no expectations, he never expects it to go anywhere and Q seems fine with that.

            Six months after Silva, everything changes.

            Six months since they lost M and they have managed to keep bringing everyone home in one piece. It’s the best run they’ve had in a long time.

           Until, one day, the whole thing goes to hell.

            The mission goes pear shaped right out of the gate and a man nearly dies, shot in the chest by the mark he’s been sent to kill. And there is Q, a constant, calm voice running through what’s happening, keeping the man conscious until help arrives. His voice is quiet, steady and sure, but Band can see his fair skin has gone white and his slender hands are shaking on the keys, so badly it sends tremors up his arms and through his whole body all at once.

            Then the medics arrive and it’s over and Q is pushing past and out the doors before the line of communication has time to cut off.

            Eve’s there and she catches Bond’s eye, nodding towards their receding Quartermaster.  She good as gold in more ways than one and Bond knows she’ll cover for them.

            He finds Q on the roof, arms folded across his knees, his head forehead resting on his forearms. He holds his glasses in the one hand, and an unlit cigarette in the other.

            “Forgot my bloody lighter,” he half laughs, sounding breathless.

            Bond pulls his own out of his pocket and offers it, but the younger man’s hands are shaking so bad he can’t manage and he swears. Bond takes it from his trembling hands, moves in close to light the end. Q takes a long drag, eyes slipping closed as he sits and holds the smoke for a moment, before exhaling again.

            “Thanks,” he says after a time, standing. He wraps an arm around his torso.

            “You alright?” Bond queries, leaning against the railing.

            Quartermaster only nods.

            “He’s alive.”

            “Because of you.”

            Q gives a bitter grin and shrugs, taking another drag of his cigarette.

            “Was he your first?”

            Bond asks after a time and Q genuinely laughs. There he goes again, surprising Bond. Just when 007 thinks Q will never revel anything of consequence about his true nature, he does.

            “I’ve been with the agency nearly ten years. Of course I have handled field agents before,” he pressed the heel of his hand into his eyes, “But listening to them die, knowing they trusted their life in your hands. That part never gets easier. “

            “But he isn’t dead.”

            “No, not yet anyway. But if he survives, that will be because of the medical team. If he dies, it will be because of me. Because I let him go into that warehouse and I let him get shot. Even if that is not what happened, he will always remember it that way. He won’t work with me again, because he trusted me and I failed him. He will try to be a good agent, but he will never be able to put his trust in me again and I don’t blame him. Because I can’t trust me either.”

            This is the part Bond isn’t good with. He’s a wreck. He knows it. Q knows it.  Everyone knows it. He can’t help put someone back together when he’s never figured out how to properly do it for himself. But he wants to and that surprises him perhaps more than anything.

            “You look like you could use a good, stiff drink,” Bond says, after a moment, turning to watch the sun dip behind the buildings.

            “Oh God, yes,” Q answers, his voice practically a groan as he tosses the cigarette to the ground, stamping it out and running a hand through his mussed hair, sliding his glasses back on. Morphing back into the Q everyone knows.

            They take Bond’s car to a quiet bar he knows but doesn’t frequent. Q, dressed as he is, will fit in here. One drink quickly turns to three or four or five drinks, but there is Q surprising him again. For such a waif, the man can hold his liquor.

            “Are you even old enough to drink?” Bond jokes and Q just smiles at him, a boyish smile unlike the one he uses at work.

            “Aren’t you a little too old for martinis, Bond? I thought that was a young man’s drink?” the quartermaster shoots back and then they’re both smiling. 

            “Never doubt the power of a good martini,” he says, “It’s ambrosia. Graces you with the power of a god.”

            “So that’s your secret is it,” Q chuckles, tipping back the last of his vodka tonic, “Shaken not stirred indeed.”

            “You don’t believe me, then there are some numbers I could give you, to help you quantify your results,” he turns the empty glass in his hand, his tone teasing, “Unless you’d rather find out for yourself.”

            It was meant as harmless flirtation, the type of banter they always passed between one another these days. But Q got quiet, his gaze unfocused as he stared across the bar at the lines of half filled bottles.

            “Are you serious?” he asks after a moment, “Or is it all really just a game?”

            Bond was taken aback for a moment. He’d never really thought about it, it had simply been automatic. Gender had never factored into his things, pansexual was the term Moneypenny had used, and he’d always found Q attractive in his own odd, eclectic way. It would be a lie to say that there hadn't been moments, stolen in sideways glances, that Bond hadn’t wondered what the young man looked like under all those layers, hadn’t contemplated what it would be like to touch that milk pale skin, hadn’t wondered what is would take to make that slender body bow in pleasure. But he’d been under the impression that there was no attraction to him on Q’s side and so the idea of propositioning the Quartermaster had never even crossed his mind. He had thought it a clearly defined line. And there was Q, pulling the rug from under him once again.

            Q is looking at him now and his expression has changed. It was open and just a little afraid. Bond can practically hear the wheels turning in that brilliant head. Q was worried he’d said too much, that he had crossed the line; that he’d ruined a good thing.

            Bond only quirked a brow.

            “Would you like me to be? Serious that is?”

            Q’s expression folds from frightened to confused.

            “It can be what ever you want it to be, Q,” he says, leaning in, “Your the Quartermaster. You call the shots.”

            “You’ve never been very good at following orders though,” Q amends, though there was relief on his face.

            Bond shrugs, waving the barman over for their check.

            “I have my moments.”

            “So you would take me home, if I asked? You want me like that?”

            “Are you asking?”

            “Yes.”

            Bond lets a hand rest on Q’s thigh, high up, near the juncture of his hip.

            “You’re place or mine?”

            There is no hesitation as Q’s hand came to rest over his own. Like he’s thought about this before, and often.

            “Well, as I suppose as I started the conversation, mine would be the politest option,” he says, that sharp wit back.

            “I would say,” Bond agrees, passing his card to the bartender.

            The ride to Q’s apartment is quiet, just the hum of the engine between them. But Q is smiling contentedly, like something has been lifted off him, watching the city pass them.

            “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he asks once, “I don’t want to be an obligation.”

            “You’re not an obligation. You’re a friend,” Bond says, and he means it, “It would be a lie to say I have never thought about. I was simply under the impression you weren’t interested. And besides, I have always been fond of the ‘friends with benefits’ idea. Seems novel in our line of work, shagging someone you actually like.”

            Q laughs at that, his head falling back against the seat and he’s smiling again, bright and honest and hungry.

            Q’s building is a quaint, aged affair with over stuffed couches and soft lighting in the lobby. For all the young man’s modernity, his home is a throw back to a time gone by. Rich wood and dark colors, brass numbers on the apartment doors. Unexpected again.

            Q unlocks the door and lets Bond in, before following himself. He flips on the light and locks the door behind them. His house it the same warm shades as the rest of the building, with thick carpets put down over the hard wood. There are shelves stuffed to bursting with books in the hall and in the sitting room. There is a stair well in the center of the hall, a flannel scarf tossed haphazardly over the banister. Several coats and jumpers hang on hooks by the door. There is a small office filled with more books and several different computer units and a incredibly comfortable- looking office chair. Art work and pictures line all the walls and shelves. Photographs of smiling faces. Q is even in some of them. It’s such a stark contrast to the clinical blankness of his division, of his office. Here Bond remembers that Q is a man with another name, with another life, with a family and loved ones and things he cares about that don’t directly link back to Queen and Country.

             A chuckle behind him catches his attention. Q has shrugged off his jacket it and hung it on one of the hooks. He’s loosening his tie and watching Bond with careful eyes.

            “Not getting cold feet are you?”

            “Just admiring. It’s not what I expected.”

            “Am I ever what you expect, 007?” Q asks, dropping his tie onto the hall table, coming closer.

            “So you’ve noticed,” he replied, letting an arm wrap around the slim waist, pulling the younger man’s body against him.

            Q leans in, taking advantage of their similar height, pressing their lips together. The kiss is hard and demanding, the kiss of a man who knows exactly what he wants. Yet another surprise and one Bond is happy to yield to. His hand comes up to rest against the back of the younger man’s neck, tangling in that fine mess he calls hair. Q catches Bond’s lower lip, tugs lightly, just hard enough to get his attention. His Quartermaster was full of surprises tonight.

            They parted, and he sees Q  grinning wickedly at him, working the knot of James’s tie loose, using the loop of fabric to guide the man to the stairs.

            “You’ll excuse if I’m quick to move this upstairs. I’ll be honest, I am dying to know what all the fuss is about.”

            And Bond goes without complaint.

            The second they hit even ground again, Q falls on him like a tempest, like some greedy spirit of the sea, ready to pull him under, ready to love him until he drowns. He can’t find it in himself to care because it’s been so long since someone made him feel this alive. He forces himself to focus on the bony frame under his hands. The past was a dangerous road to let himself walk, even for a moment, less he be lured in by the memories of what he had lost.

             He gets Q against the wall and the youth’s quick fingers are pushing off his jacket, working at the buttons of his dress shirt. He bits the younger man’s lip and Q bits back, but lets Bond’s tongue slip past his teeth, let’s Bond explore. There has always been a strangeness in the way the Quartermaster deals with people, as if he’s not quite sure what to do with them. Like he doesn’t understand them the way he understands computers and codes and circuitry. They vex him. Bond had always assumed that would bleed into one’s sex life as well.  Yet nothing about this spoke of inexperience. No, Q has fooled him again. Quartermaster, he’d done this before, enough to know how to get what he wants. The hands that slip inside Bond’s shirt, cold against his skin, tell him as much.

            He gets a hand on Q’s hip and a knee between the man’s thighs, bracing his weight against the wall, trapping his Quartermaster there. Q growls, low in his throat, arching into Bond, and the double o can feel the press of Q’s erection through the fabric. They part for breath, Bond takes the moment to his advantage, kissing is way sharply across the line of the quartermaster’s jaw. Q tilts his head back and Bond moves his way down the exposed line of that pale throat. Q makes a pleased noise, short nails racking Bond’s scalp, guiding the agent’s hand to the buttons of his own shirt. Bond is happy to oblige. He opened enough blouses without looking to be quite proficient at this point. It’s only what’s beneath the shirt that’s different.

            But that doesn’t keep him from finding himself at a loss again, when Q is exposed to him for the first time. In all the stolen moments where he wondered, vaguely, what the Quartermaster might be hiding under those layers, the idea that Q might have tattoos had never even crossed his mind. The way his bones stand out, that doesn’t surprise in the least but the dark ink on his parchment skin leaves Bond staggered and enamored and completely aroused. Bond traces the outline of wires and circuitry that travel around Q’s shoulder and down his arm, or the beautiful recreation of water colored flowers(some he knows, some he doesn’t) that start just above his groin,  wrap over the curve of his hip, up his side and ribs, then around his  back. Over his heart was a quote from the Iliad. “Be strong sayth my heart. I am a soldier, I have seen worse sites than this.”

 _Fitting_ Bond thinks to himself.

            Quartermaster’s voice in his ear caught him off guard.

            “Come now 007, don’t tell me tattoos put you off.”

            “Not in the slightest,” he replies, tracing the outline of a dahlia that rested just above the jut of Q’s hip, “Just not what I expected.”

Q shrugged.

            “Another life, another time. But I don’t have the heart to get rid of them.”

            “But flowers Q,” he teases, drawing his teeth across the stark outline of the youth’s collarbone.

            “One for each of the women in my family,” he says, canting his head back, “I thought of it as a penitence. Immortalizing them on my skin to pay them back for all the disappointment I caused.”

            Bond is a bit taken aback by that. That is private, personal. It is the first information of it’s kind that Q has divulged about himself. He stills for a moment, not really sure what to do. Q must notice because he gave Bond a firm shove.

            “Bedroom,” he says and there was a glint of mischief in his eye that went straight to Bond’s groin.

            “Aye, Aye sir,” he replies, following Q into the nearest room.

            He doesn’t get a chance to look around before the young Quartermaster is on him again, wrapped around him and kissing him with all the urgency of a drowning man come up for air. Bond kisses back, trying to blindly untangle those gangly limbs from that blasted shirt, before he tugs Q closer with his hands on those delectably sharp hips. Q’s mouth tastes like bergamot and cigarette smoke and top shelf vodka and he almost loses himself in it before he feels those hands working at his belt. Kingdoms fall at the command of this man’s hands; the buckle of an Armani belt is nothing to him.

            Then he’s moving down Bond’s body, leaving a trail of hard, biting kisses in his wake. Neck, shoulders, chest, abdomen, Q’s mouth explores the lines of hard muscle as he slides to his knees and Bond feels his blood rushing south again. Q is staring up as him over the rims of his glasses and his cheeks are flushed, more color than he’s ever seen in the young man’s face before. His hair is mussed and he’s grinning like a cat in cream as his hands come to rest on the fly of Bond’s trousers.

            Bond reaches down and plucks the plastic frames from the end of Q’s nose, dropping them carefully on to the dresser.

            “Wouldn’t want those to get broken,” he said, his voice already rough with arousal.

            Q doesn’t respond, just uses his tongue to follow the line of muscles where Bond’s thigh joins his torso, popping the button of his fly, tugging at the zipper. Bond shutters when Q works his cock out of his trousers, palming the shaft. He wastes no time, his tongue darting out to lap the head, hand working the older man in slow, tight pulls. Bond growls, finding purchase on Q’s shoulder and holding him tight enough to bruise. Q takes mercy on him, leaning in too take Bond’s length into that utterly flawless mouth.

            Bond nearly loses himself as the younger man swallows him down, his thin cheeks hollowing as he sucks. Bond has been on both sides of this equation enough times to appreciate just how good Q is at this. It’s a skill that speaks of experience. Interesting. But his thoughts turn back to the matter at hand when Q’s fist in the fabric of Bond’s trousers and takes him further. Everything is gone for a moment, his mind going gloriously blank, and all he has to think about is that perfect, cheeky young mouth.

But in a breath, Q is moving away, leaving the older man’s cock standing at full attention. The absence of that perfect warmth sends a shiver down his spine and his brow furrows, irritated. Q looks up at him with those storm cloud eyes, tongue darting out across his lips. He leans up a bit, pressing kissing and tasting the skin just below Bond’s navel.

“I want you to wreck me,” he groans against the agent’s skin and its so wanton and lewd and totally unexpected.

And Bond can’t stop himself now, can’t keep his hands from tangling in that unruly mop of hair and pulling the younger man to his feet. He practically attacks Q’s mouth, tasting himself on those sinful lips and Q happily opens to him. He yanks the hair again, using his grip to pull the pup’s head to one side, latching on to the sensitive skin where that sharp jaw met that slender neck. He catches it between his teeth, just hard enough to mark then sucking at the wound until it grows warm and blushing in his mouth. Q lets out a breathless noise, something between a moan and a whine and the sound travels straight to James cock and he moves down the column of Q’s throat, to his shoulder, his collar, leaving a clean path that will color to purple by morning. Q is clutching at him, at the firm muscles in his back, his bicep, blunt nails and long fingers digging into his skin.

“Bed. Now,” Bond snarls loosing his hold on that dark hair but Q is there to shock him again.

He turns his head just enough to press a kiss to the inside of Bond’s wrist, a stark contrast from the death hold his hands hand acquired.

“Make me,” he says, his voice just a breathless half laugh against Bond’s skin and it sets the older man ablaze. He’s never bedded someone who is such and intense, impossibly compilation of conundrums.

            Bond is happy to oblige, moving his grip form Q’s hair to his scruff and shoving him towards the bed, playfully. But his smile hungry, predatory. Q returns the look in kind, those slender hands working at his own belt as he toes off his shoes, prompting Bond to do the same. His knees hit the bed and he sits down hard, pulling off his socks and tossing them somewhere out of sight. Bond falls onto him like a storm, pushing him flat against the mattress, trapping him under a body more muscle than bone. Bond gets hold of Q’s wrists, which are slender enough he can hold both in one hand, and pins them above the Quartermaster’s head. With the other, he reachs between their bodies, palms Q’s cock through his trousers and the younger man practically sings under the touch, his back bowing. He swears, long and loud, and the look he gives Bond is both satisfied and venomous. Bond wasn’t sure why he’d expected Q to be a gentle, quiet, timid lover, but he finds he likes this much better anyway.

            “Get me out of these _bloody_ things,” he snarls, lifting his own thigh to press hard against Bond’s exposed erection, rocking slowly.

            “Clever boy,” Bond chuckles, worrying blindly at the opening of Q’s trousers, but not breaking his hold on the man’s hands, not even as he slips his own into the Quartermaster’s boxer briefs.

            Warm, callused fingers wrap around Q’s length and he snarls, animal and fierce, face pressed into the juncture of Bond’s shoulder and neck.

            “Bastard,” he hisses, but Bond can tell by the hitch in his breath, by the way that he moves, he wouldn’t want it any other way. He is all teeth and claws and animal need, because this is the man he cannot be when the weight of the empire sets on his shoulders. He cannot expose himself in his everyday life, he can’t show and ounce of weakness. He cannot ask for the things he wants, he can’t entertain these dominance games that make him feel so alive. His is showing Bond the side of himself he hides, that he disguises so well know one would thing to look for it. It’s not a revelation that needs words, because he has chosen to show it to Bond, of all people. He had chosen Bond because he knows the double o will understand. Know Q has put himself fully in Bond’s hands, it’s a weighty thing, and he won’t take it lightly.

            He leans in, and kisses Q hard on the mouth, a promise that what passes between them tonight will be theirs alone. Q’s secrets are safe with him.

            He loosens his grip on Q’s wrists, needing both his hands to divest his partner of his trousers and underclothes. They fall into the heap of unseen clothing, forgotten almost instantly, because Bond is trying very hard to process the sight before him.

            Q is an amazing combination of dark and light, of shadows and angles and clean, hard lines. His hips bones match his collarbones, his shoulder blades, all clearly defined and sharp as razor blades. But he’s not emaciated; he simply possesses a different kind of muscle. Hard, tight, compact. The body of a man who runs more than he lifts weights. His veins stand out like tangles of wire beneath his skin. His tattoos add texture and color to the picture, drawing the eye in a thousand places at once. There are two more, what look like seraphs on the outside of either thigh. But Bond is too caught up in what rests between them to notices the finery of the artwork. Q’s is hard and flushed, standing at full attention from a bed of dark curls.

             Never in a million years could Bond have imagined such a sight. Q is pushing himself up on the bed, his breath heavy, but his grin wolfish and perfectly pleased, daring Bond to follow. There’s not even a trace of embarrassment or shame. He knows what he wants and he knows Bond can give it to him. No fear. No regret. And in that moment Bond realizes the most surprising thing of all. That Q wants exactly what Bond wants, and that is to feel alive.

             Bond can’t shake his remaining clothes off fast enough. He crawls between Q’s open thighs, kisses him with a fever he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.  He kisses Q like they are the last two people in the world, like nothing else beyond these walls matters. Hands reach and explore and then latch on, and Bond is pressing his weight onto Q, chest to chest and their bodies align almost perfectly. He shits his hips experimentally and Q gasps, raising a little, pressing their groins together as hard as he can. Bond builds up a slow rhythm, and Q racks his blunt fingernails down Bond’s back, getting a firm handle on Bond’s ass. The 00 agent can’t help the breathless chuckle that escapes him, and he sees Q smiling at him through half lidded eyes.

             “Christ, James,” he breaths, his head falling back against the pillows, pulling Bond closer.

             “You think he would approve,” Bond purred, rocking hard against Q, “He was rather liberal after all. Hanging around with prostitutes and tax collectors and all that.”

            Q digs his fingers into the flesh of Bond’s ass, effectively reducing him to his own string of profanities.

            The minutes stretch out and blur together in a swirl of lips and tongues and fingers and teeth and too-hot flesh. It’s Q’s hand on his chest that slows him. The younger man is trembling.

            “Enough,” he says, tracing the line between Bond’s pectorals, “as much as I am enjoying this, you have no idea how badly I need you to fuck me.”

            Bond smiles at the bluntness. Always to the point, his Quartermaster. One of the few ways in which he was predictable.

            “Gladly,” he chuckles, and Q breathes a sigh of relief.

            “Lube and condoms, in that drawer there,” he huffs, pointing to the small nightstand and Bond is happy to retrieve them.

            Q spreads out on his stomach and Bond moves to settle on the back of those slender thighs. He leans in, drawing the outline of the raven tattooed on Q’s shoulder, pouring a bit of lube into his palm, rubbing it between his hands to warm it. Q lets his head drop onto his forearms with a sigh but Bond doesn’t let him relax for long. He knots his fingers in Q’s mop once more, pulling his head up just as Bond presses the first finger into him. He keens and tries to press back the weight on his thighs restricts his movement.

            “Bastard,” he chokes through his teeth, but Bond paying special attention to his pulse, feeling the way the tempo picks up under his lips.

            “Always, my darling Quartermaster, “ He chuckles into the shell of Q’s ear, pushing his finger into the knuckle and earning another string of gasped profanities.

            Bond fingers Q as he does everything else in his life, at his own damn pace. Q must not mind because by the time Bond has three digits in him, the younger man is practically sobbing a long string of curses and threats. His muscles are pulled tight as violin strings and he’s trembling, hands fisted in the pillows. Bond works him thoroughly, stroking the tight heat, ensuring nothing is left unattended.

            “You act like you’ve never been fingered,” he laughs against Q’s skin and the Quartermaster is doesn’t seem amused.

            “Never like this,” he whines, breathless, “Most men treated it like a necessary step, something you do before- oh _god-_ getting to the good stuff. “

            “And what do you think,” Bond asks, his voice innocent even as he works his fingers against Q’s prostate, enjoying the long groan that pulls from the younger man’s lips.

            It takes Q a second to remember how to breath, and several more to regain the capacity to speak.

            “ I think if you don’t put your cock in me right _bloody_ now, you’re not going to get the chance,” he pants, and Bond can tell by the unconscious way Q it rutting against the sheets that he isn’t far off the mark.

            Bond moves off of him, reaching over to snag a condom. Q shift beside him, rolling onto his back. He’s flushed and panting, skin glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. He looks painfully hard and he is looking at Bond with a hunger that 007 fully understand. He wants to ravage this man, to take him apart. Q, it seems, couldn’t agree more.

             He can’t get the wrapper off fast enough and Q never reaches to assist, just watches him, like a predator, and that makes the blood rush straight to his groin again. Outfitted, he settles between Q’s spread thighs. They press tight against Bond’s sides, ankles locked and heels digging into the agent’s tail bone, leaving him no where to go but forward. He braces a hand beside Q’s head, used the other to hold the man still as he pushes in. Q gives a shuttering sigh, his eyes falling closed as he clutches the sheets in one hand, his own hair in the other.

            Bond takes it slow, loving the Q’s head presses back into the pillows, the way his breath catches, the way he pulls his lower lip between his teeth and groans, low and deep. Bond works himself in a little at a time. Push in, pull almost out, push in deeper. Q hitches his hips up with every movement, trying to take more. Then Bond’s in him to the hilt and they both exhale.

            Bond works up a slow rhythm but Q is having none of it, wrapping a hand around the back of 007’s neck, pulling him close, demanding to be taken harder. Q ruts against him, meeting every thrust, heels pushing Bond deeper, blunt nails racking lines across the older man’s back. He pants out a constant stream of cruses and commands and Bond is quick to please. He can feel Q’s thighs trembling where they're held, high and tight, against the agent’s ribs. His cock it hard and leaking against Bond’s abs and he knows neither of them will last long. Q tightens his muscles and rolls his hips with the every thrust, working Bond’s cock inside him, even as he demands to be taken harder, faster, deeper. Bond can’t say no to that voice, reduced to a throaty growl, sounding just on the verge of breaking. Bond slams into him hard enough to rock the bed, one hand clutching Q’s tightly muscled thigh, the other bracing his weight against the head board.

            Q keens, long and loud as Bond strikes him, again and again, thrusting punishingly against Q’s prostate.

            “Harder- _oh fuck_ -yes James right there- _ohgod_ –right- _AH –_ there,” he’s panting, eyes screwed shut, arms wrapped around Bond’s back, finger’s clutching painfully into the strong shoulders.

            Bond feels the way he tightens, and unintentional drawing up of the muscles and he knows Q is nearly there. He slides his hand from Q’s thigh to his cock and, stroking him, calloused thumb rubbing over the tip and it drives Q over the edge. He pulls Bond closer, wraps around him like a snake, squeezing. His teeth find purchase in the muscles of Bond’s shoulder. Q bites him, honest to god bites him, screaming against Bond’s flesh as he comes hard, spilling his seed between them. There is something so primal about it, something so basic, that it lights a new fire in Bond’s blood.

            Q drops back against the pillows, breathless, boneless, and Bond takes the full control. He leans back, hitching Q’s knees over his elbows, grasping those hips in a bruising grip, rocking into the man with renewed fire. Q grabs Bond’s wrists to help brace him, and tilts his hips, just to give. Bond rocks into Q’s body, his own voice gone, beyond the basic, primitive grunts of exertion. Q runs a hand down up his arm, down his chest.

            “That’s it,” he pants, hoarse and exhausted and totally blissed out, helping Bond towards his own end, “Come for me. Come for me.”

            Bond’s body goes taunt as looses his hold on control. He thrusts, erratic and crazed and punishingly hard into his Quartermaster’s body as his balls draw tight and his spill into the condom.

            Within seconds he feels like he’s losing command of his spine and he eases Q’s legs down, drops back to the bed, laying at Q’s side. They smile at each other, both  breathless and sated. They lay together, staring at the ceiling and just trying to remember how to breath properly. Bond has a moment of clariety to do away with the condom in the bin beneath the night stand. 

            Long minutes stretch by before Q’s hand drops onto Bond’s upper thigh. Bond reaches out, gathering the smaller body in is arms and pulling Q against him, back to chest. He likes feeling of being wrapped around someone so angular, like they fit into the spaces of his body.

            “You more than live up to expectations, Mr.Bond,” Q teases and his voice is thick with the afterglow.

            “James,” he purrs, catching Q’s ear, nibbling playfully. He doesn’t, as a rule, stick around after sex but nothing about tonight has been his usual fair, “That’s what you called me when I was inside you. I like hearing you moan it like that.”

            Q chuckled, settling back into the embrace.

            “Then you can call me Quinn. But only so long as we’re in bed. Understood?”

            Bond turned the name over in his head. Quinn. He liked that name. He filed it away, adding it to the collage of things that were beginning to make an image in his head. Q, Quartermaster, Quinn, a strange man of a thousand known pieces and billions more he had yet to show. But Bond had always liked a challenge.

            “Quinn,” he repeated and the name felt smooth as cigarette smoke and good vodka as it rolled of his tongue.

 


End file.
